


Ready to Wait

by aohatsu



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Abortion, M/M, Male Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aohatsu/pseuds/aohatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn't been prepared to be a dad at nineteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ready to Wait

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This fic deals with abortion issues, and while I tried to be sensitive, my views may or may not coincide with your own, so please be aware of that going in. Also, there's no rational explanation for why dudes can get pregnant in this universe; they just can, okay? Also also, some canon stuck around, some was nudged, and some was disregarded altogether.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely [Bekka](wolfshood.tumblr.com), as basically always.

Jeff doesn't want to say it's surprising. He doesn't want to admit it was an accident; that it was unexpected; that he never meant for this to _happen_.

He's thought about getting married and having kids. He’s thought about it a lot. He's spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about things like what his wedding would be like; of course he’s thought about how it would be to have kids when he was old enough for that sort of thing to feel right, when he was ready for it.

He couldn't have avoided thinking about it: he had four sisters who made him play  _house_  and  _tea party_  and his parents were the sort of people who put all of their kids into hockey  _and_  figure skating, because gender stereotypes just weren’t something his parents wanted in their house. Jeff isn’t afraid to admit that when his grade school teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he didn't say a hockey player, or a figure skater; he said a _dad_. It’s what he wanted to be then, what he _still_ wants to be.

He just, he hadn't been prepared to be a dad at nineteen.

But the staring contest he's having with the doctor isn't because he has food poisoning, or got checked into the boards too hard during the last game, or any number of other reasons he'd been entertaining on the way over.

"I'm pregnant," he says slowly, sounding and stretching out the word, like he’s trying to re-familiarize himself with what it means.

"You are," the doctor says, still staring at him, like she's trying to gauge if he's going to run for it.

Jeff's considering it, honestly. Thinks he could make it to his car, and then back to his apartment, maybe all the way back to Toronto. The stupid paper they make you sit on crinkles underneath his fists because he's clenching them so tight. He looks from the doctor's face, to the sterilized countertops behind her, with the little jars full of cardboard sticks and cotton balls, to the machine on the other side of the room, beeping quietly, and to the floor, bright and pristine against his sneakers, dirty and needing to be replaced pretty soon. He just hasn’t had time to go shopping for shoes lately; the last stretch before playoffs is coming up. 

 _Okay_ , he thinks, and then again, and again, until he can breathe normally, until he can look at the doctor again without doing something stupid, like crying or telling her  _no way, check again_. "Okay," he says, shaking his head, pulling his shoulders tight. "What now?"

 

 

His sneakers squeak against the floor in protest when he gets up to leave a little while later, and he's clutching the pamphlet in his hand, and the phone in his pocket, fiddling with the red stylus he has hooked to it, the one his sister gave him the last time she came to Raleigh for a game.

He meticulously signs the papers he's supposed to sign, says whatever he's supposed to say, and walks out of the room. His sneakers keep squeaking as he walks down the hallway, but he doesn't register anything else until he gets into the front seat of his car, and stares at the wheel. 

The pamphlet in his hand is crumpled up from how tightly he'd been holding onto it, and he drops it into the passenger seat, not looking at it. 

He doesn't start the car; his hands are shaking on the wheel. He fumbles for his keys after a minute, but he can't stop shaking enough to get the keys into the ignition. He squeezes his eyes tight and stops trying, just leans back in his chair and digs out his phone, and taps out Eric's name, waits for Eric to pick up.

"Jeff," Eric says easily, voice warm and maybe even pleased to be hearing from him.

"Hey, uh," Jeff says, and he hates how choked off his voice sounds. "Do you think you could pick me up?"

He can already hear Eric moving, can picture the way Eric rolls his jacket on, grabs the keys off the stand by the door and drops them in his pocket. "Where are you?" Eric asks, and he doesn't sound as pleased anymore, sounds... serious, like the captain of an NHL team, not that guy Jeff likes to hang out with on his off days, eating too much popcorn with too much butter and watching stupid shows just for the excuse to curl into each other on the sofa. 

Jeff hangs up after Eric says, "I'm on my way," and then the phone gets dropped right on top of the stupid pamphlet, covering up the innocuous black text.

**_Abortion, and everything you should know about it._ **

It’s thick, black text, simple and innocuous, like that's supposed to keep it from being terrifying as hell, like it's supposed to keep the nausea down any better than it would if it were huge and cursive in bright neon green with exclamation points at the end.

He has an appointment.

He has to tell Eric.

He has to tell the team, the management;

he can't  _breathe_. 

Abortion is one of those things Jeff’s thought about in abstract terms. He supports the right to choose, more or less; it’s not like somebody who doesn’t want to be a parent should be. But Jeff’s never thought of it as an option, not for him. He’s not one of those guys who honestly doesn’t want kids, who doesn’t want to grow up and get married and have a family. Jeff’s—one of his friends, back at home in Toronto, has this game on her computer where you can make these little people, and you can build their houses and get them jobs and get them married and have kids, and Jeff’s played it through a few times. He’s always wanted that, he’s always—

But he can’t.

He can’t think about it, can’t deal with it, there’s no way he could handle it, and he’s supposed to be going home and making a list of pros and cons but he _can’t_. The answer is no, it’s no, he’s not prepared for this, let alone a—a kid—and—

This isn’t how it was supposed to go, this isn’t what he planned, what he thought about when he was a kid (God, he still _is_ a kid, he can’t _have_ one), it’s all wrong.

He’s startled back into reality when there’s a sharp tap on his window. He flinches, and when he looks up to see Eric peering in at him, it’s as if the bottom of his stomach drops out, like a cold sweat climbing out through his skin. It’s the way he felt when he fell on the ice during an audition when he was thirteen, and the way he felt walking up to that stage to pull a red Hurricanes jersey over his head, and when he turned around on the sofa only to catch Eric looking right at him, like Eric _wanted_ him.

It feels like something’s going to give, and he doesn’t know what the end result will be.

“Jeff?” Eric’s voice is muffled through the car door, but when Jeff goes to open it, his hands are still shaking, out of his control. He stares at them; it’s easier than looking at Eric. At least until Eric pulls the door open the rest of the way, until he leans down and looks up at Jeff, clear worry all over his face.

“Hey,” Eric says, soft like he’s trying not to spook him. Normally he’d take offense, but he’s relieved right now, because Jeff doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it. He just climbs out of his car, gripping Eric’s jacket for leverage, and then follows Eric carefully, slowly, back to Eric’s truck.

The truck doors are loud when they shut, always are, but it still feels like a slap to the face when the loud slam hits him, and he hunches over until his head is between his knees, his hands covering his face so that Eric can’t see him; can’t see what a wreck he is.

Eric doesn’t start the truck though, isn’t driving Jeff home, or to his place. He just turns in his seat, looking right at Jeff, like if he just waits long enough, Jeff will say something.

He feels sick.

“I’m okay,” he settles on, finally, and manages to sit back up, enough to pull on his seatbelt. “You can drive.”

Eric hesitates, starts to say something, but Jeff says, “Just give me a minute, okay—just—drive, can you just drive, please, I can’t—“

Eric’s music station snaps on when he starts the truck, the volume set low, and quiet country music filters out through the space between him and Eric.

He almost wishes he hadn’t called him; wishes his default emergency contact wasn’t Eric, was Cam or Coach or anyone else, anybody but _Eric_ , and that makes him feel sick too. It’s not just Jeff’s decision, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that, but he can’t say it, because there’s nothing left to decide, and it doesn’t matter what Eric wants, or even what Jeff wants, it’s—it’s about what he has to do, and he can’t—

It’s been an hour, almost, since the test came back and the doctor looked at him and said, “It looks as though you’re pregnant, Mr. Skinner,” like she knew what bad news that was. Of course she did though; she was the doctor for the entire Carolina team.

He can’t play hockey if he’s pregnant.

He wouldn’t be able to _skate_.

“Pull over,” is all he manages to say before Eric is pulling off on the shoulder of the highway and Jeff is pushing open the door and throwing up on the street, leaning out and over until he’s just dry-heaving, nothing left to give.

“Jesus Christ,” he hears Eric mutter before he feels the easy, comforting pressure of a hand on his back, rubbing small circles through his shirt and into his skin. He shivers, and wipes his mouth before he comes back into the truck, pulling the door shut behind him.

Eric gives him a warm, half-empty bottle of water and Jeff drinks it down, although he’s sure it doesn’t help his breath much, judging by the lingering taste in his mouth.

Cars speed past them, but Eric gets back up to speed quick enough, and doesn’t ask Jeff if he wants to go home or to his place; just heads for his big house, the one Jeff spends most of his time at anyway. It’s probably better that way, really. He’d be too tempted to ignore it at his own place.

Eric drops his keys in the bowl by the door. It used to be a goldfish’s bowl, but Parker had forgotten to feed it, and Eric hadn’t been much better—it had died after just three weeks, and Jeff had had to make up a story on the spot about how the goldfish had wanted to be set free in the ocean.

Parker had cried for an hour, and Eric had felt so guilty he’d wanted to go buy a new one and pretend it was the same fish. Jeff had barely been able to convince him not to doom another fish to starving to death until Parker was at least four.

Parker’s at his mom’s house now, is more often than Eric would like, Jeff knows, but it’s their job; they’re away from Raleigh for days at a time, weeks even, on long road trips. Half of the time that Eric does get Parker, he has to leave him with Susan, the nanny Eric hired before Jeff was even drafted to Carolina.

Thinking about Parker makes the nauseous feeling come back, but there’s nothing left to throw up, and he manages to just sit down on the edge of the sofa and squeeze his eyes tight.

Eric doesn’t have to ask; he just follows Jeff into the room, and Jeff says, “I’m pregnant.”

He and Eric aren’t dating—exactly.

Jeff hasn’t hooked up or dated anyone else since joining the team and neither has Eric, and they’ve talked about that, but they haven’t talked about anything else, not really. Jeff has no idea where this is headed, if it’s serious or more of a friends-with-benefits sort of deal, and honestly, it’s still his second year on the team, and he’s only nineteen—Jeff isn’t sure if he wants this to be labeled, isn’t sure if he wants to start thinking of him and Eric as a couple, as people who live together and show up at barbecue’s together and adopt stupid pet fish together, even if they mostly sort of do that already.

Jeff isn’t ready for the _our intentions_ talk; hell, when his parents’ met Eric for the first time, Jeff had very specifically introduced him as the team’s captain, and that’s it. The only one who even knows about his thing with Eric is Jilly, and that’s because she’d pried it out of him in that annoying way only younger siblings seem to manage, and now she seems to think he’s having some sort of Hollywood forbidden romance you’d see in some terrible book mostly featuring bad writing and smut.

Jeff hasn’t met Eric’s family beyond the three in the league, the ex-wife, and Parker.

Eric sinks into the couch next to Jeff, and after a minute, says, “Okay.”

Jeff stares at the rug, brown and fluffy soft except where Parker spilled his koolaid last week, where it’s all stained red and scratchy because Eric doesn’t know how to clean anything properly. He loves Parker. He’s not ready for a kid.

He’s not in love with Eric.

“Okay,” Eric says again, and he’s shaking his head, leaning back and into the sofa, practically letting it swallow him. “How far—are you okay?”

It’s a weird question, and maybe one Jeff should have been expecting, but it still throws him. “I can’t keep it,” Jeff says instead, bypassing the question about his _wellbeing_ altogether. He doesn’t know the answer.

“You—“ and now Jeff can hear Eric’s breathing taper out, like he’s letting out a long sigh. Jeff thinks, for a minute, that Eric’s going to be angry; going to yell because it’s his choice too, it’s his decision too, he at least deserves to be part of the discussion, and Jeff knows that, but instead Eric just covers his face with a big palm and says, “Alright. I’ll—make the calls. You have an appointment?”

Jeff just nods. There’s a spot on Eric’s wall that needs re-plastered and painted; Cam and one of the other guys had gotten in a tussle a few months back, and somebody’s elbow had ended up breaking through the wall.

“I’ll go with you.”

Jeff looks up, and he hadn’t known he’d been waiting for anything, but he must’ve been, because he can’t help but swallow and nod, so relieved it _hurts_. He feels goosebumps popping up all over the back of his neck and down his arms, and when Eric adjusts a few seconds later, tilting his body back and lifting his arm to let Jeff slide in next to him, Jeff does. He climbs into Eric’s space and presses his face against Eric’s chest, suddenly aching for the familiar comfort of just being with Eric.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he feels like he has to. It comes out wet and muffled, but Eric understands him anyway.

“That’s not—“ Eric starts, and then stops. He sounds frustrated, but he’s wrapped an arm around Jeff too, pulling him in close. “You’re nineteen, Jeff; you don’t have to be ready for that yet, yeah?”

“And you were ready for Parker?” Jeff asks unexpectedly, pulling back enough to look up at Eric’s face.

Eric twists his mouth into a grimace, and then shakes his head. “Don’t. Don’t do that. You’re not losing anything, alright? There’s not a right or wrong choice here, you can’t base this off what other people chose to do.”

“But what if it’s this perfect kid and I’m supposed to love them and take care of them, and I just—“ _and he’s just getting rid of it because he’s not **ready**_ , and he’s starting to cry, now, imagining what a little kid would look like, with a nose like Eric’s and dimples like Jeff’s, and he can’t—

“Don’t think about that,” Eric says, interrupting and tugging Jeff in even closer. “Don’t think about what-if’s, Jeff, just—are _you_ ready for a kid?”

“No,” Jeff chokes out.

Eric jostles him, pulls him up to look at Eric’s face and pay attention. Eric says, “Then it has to wait a few years, eh?”

 _Yeah_ , Jeff thinks, and then clings to it, to the idea of just _waiting_ , and he says, “Yeah, okay, yeah. Oh, God, my mom’s going to kill me.” He starts trying to wipe at his eyes but it’s like he can’t stop crying. “And you,” he says a minute later, wincing.

Eric winces back, and says, “Well, it’s probably a good time to tell them we’re dating, huh?”

Jeff can’t help it: he lets out a heavy, wet laugh, and says, “ _Yes_ ,” because—because yeah, maybe they are dating, and that doesn’t mean Jeff’s any closer to being ready to have a kid, or be a dad, or—anything, at all, like that, but maybe he’s ready to wait for it.

He’s always wanted a family—to get married and have kids, but he’s always wanted to skate too, figure skating, and even more, hockey, and he’s always thought of it as something that’s far off, something that he wants _someday_.

Maybe, maybe it’ll be with Eric, down the line, maybe he can make that work, with Eric and Parker, and hockey in Raleigh.

Maybe.


End file.
